The Best Klance Fanfictions

Color Me Intrigued

Strangely, Keith was absent. Lance pouted a bit. Dynamic poses might have been fun to try; oh well. He moved on, looking for any sign of life in the castle. It was oddly quiet, and Lance was beginning to wonder if he was the only one awake when he got to the observation deck. He paused. The view was truly breathtaking. Lance had never seen so many stars before leaving Earth. He made a mental note to come back and sketch this some other time and made to leave, but then his eyes caught on the figure at the other end of the room.

Keith was sitting on one of the windowsills, looking out at the stars. He must not have heard Lance come in, since he made no acknowledgement of Lance’s presence and continued staring. He looked… peaceful, kind of. Deep in thought, maybe. Lance might have teased him about moping around, but he didn’t seem upset. Keith just seemed calm.

Lance watched Keith for a minute from the doorway. It didn’t seem like Keith was going anywhere for a while. Making up his mind, Lance crouched and slid into a sitting position. He retrieved a pencil from his pocket and pulled out the notebook, flipping to a blank page. Another glance at Keith confirmed he still hadn’t moved, so Lance got to work.

It wasn’t quite a portrait. Lance knew he wasn’t very good at lifelike drawings, preferring to use the style he’d developed over years of practice. His art was cartoonish and stylized, but it would still be easy for anyone to recognize the sketch forming on the page as the red paladin. He focused on the head first, spending a couple minutes just trying to get the damn hair right. Stupid mullet. Next was the body, and it was a much simpler job drawing the clothes. The drawing was basically done at this point. Going a step further, Lance drew the window and a few simple stars in the background.

He ended up with a refined sketch by the time he decided to stop. It was pretty good: Keith in the drawing looked almost exactly like he did in real life, style choices aside. One leg was held close to his body while the other hung down, and Keith’s head rested against the window as he gazed into space. Lance stood carefully, still not wanting to announce his presence. He quietly left Keith alone and returned to his room, where he pulled out the book and looked over the drawing again. A few quick fixes were made, and then Lance hid the book in a drawer.

He went back to that sketch the next few days when he had the time. Mostly he cleaned up the rough lines and added small details, but the result was even better than he could have hoped. Satisfied, he declared it finished and put it away. He didn’t think on it much after that, though he did heat up slightly the next time he saw Keith, praying to any gods who would listen that Keith didn’t say something. For once it looked like they were on his side: Keith didn’t bring it up, and Lance was in the clear.

A week later Lance decided to try again, since it had gone so well the first time. He wandered around the castle awhile without finding anyone, but as he passed the training deck again he heard the sounds of someone grunting inside. He peeked in and observed Shiro doing sit-ups near the middle of the room. Lance grinned and crouched near the doorway, careful to stay out of sight. He checked that the hallway was clear and then got right to drawing.

It was a little more difficult this time. Shiro’s constant movement made it hard to draw one pose, and Lance had to duck behind the doorframe any time Shiro shifted to start a new exercise. The final drawing wasn’t quite what Lance was hoping for, but he wasn’t too disappointed; he tried something new, he didn’t expect it to be perfect.

Like before, he went back and fixed up the sketch. But even after that, it still wasn’t as good as his drawing of Keith. Lance flipped back to that page, then looked at the new one again. The style was the same, though the new one was missing a background. Other than that, there was nothing really wrong with it. But he just… didn’t like it nearly as much, somehow. Lance wondered about that for a bit. Was it the pose? The setting? Was Keith just easier to draw? He didn’t have an answer.